Ken

If you're caught burying her in a ditch you get free accommodation for life!

If you can legitimately keep your income below £12,570 (approx. AU$23,000) each there's no tax to pay.

I was able to check mine (I still own an investment property in the UK and was able to use that address and the mortgage on it to pass the checks) and was surprised to discover that the two years I was doing my A-levels count as full contributions (didn't even have a part-time job so definitely no NIC paid). Also my wife got contributions in years we receive Child Benefit even without any NIC being paid so it's not just about the number of years you worked.

Yes as rammygirl has said you would have become tax resident in Australia (and ceased to be tax resident in the UK) on the day you arrived, if you arrived with the intention of settling permanently. It's not quite as hard and fast as "unless you leave permanently within 6 months" but if you return to the UK in a short period that will almost certainly change your tax treatment in the UK (they'll treat it as if you never left) and may change your treatment in Australia too (but they'll probably still treat you as resident for the months you were in Australia). Each case is decided on its merits. The tax returns of both countries include a space or spaces for the date that you became resident and/or ceased to be resident. The Australian tax returns asks you "Did you become a resident for tax purposes during the year?" and "Did you cease to be a resident for tax purposes during the year?" and asks for a date for each, whereas the UK self-assessment return has a separate Residency Section (SA109) which includes questions 3 "If your circumstances meet the criteria for split year treatment, put ‘X’ in the box" and 6 "If you have an entry in box 3 enter the date from which the UK part of the year begins or ends DD MM YYYY"

Yes, export sales are included in the threshold. How to pay yourself only comes into play if you are going to create a company and then it's really about how the company pays you. If you are self-employed you don't pay yourself as your customers pay you - but I would recommend a separate bank account for the business - that way you don't need to give bank statements to your accountant that are full of your personal transactions (note that it does take some discipline only to make business payments from the business account and not to make any business payments from your personal account). The only impact of PSI is that the expenses you can claim are restricted (to those that an employee could claim) if you only have (or mostly have) just one customer. If you do take the company route then the company is a separate legal entity and so needs it's own bank account and you need to pay yourself and PSI becomes much more of an issue as does Schedule 7A (loans made to Directors).

If you expect your turnover to exceed $75,000 per annum then you have to be registered for GST. If your turnover is less than that but you have a lot of expenses that have GST on them but most of your Sales do not (e.g. your customers are in the UK so they are export sales) then it can be worth registering even if your turnover is below $75,000.

Sorry for the confusion Marisawright. I was referring to it as being ignored for tax purposes. It should be filled in at income test IT4 however as it forms part of your "Adjusted Taxable Income" used by Services Australia (Centrelink) to determine entitlements to certain benefits. Note that if you do claim anything from Services Australia they will still ask you to declare amounts of Target Foreign Income on their forms.

Your first tax return is a part-year tax return. You answer "yes" to "Did you become a resident for tax purposes during the year?" and enter your Australian Residency Start Date. Only income from that date onwards is entered (unless you had some untaxed Australian sourced income earlier in the year). If you are a temporary resident then foreign income doesn't need to be included at all.

As a tax agent I can't ethically condone lodging a tax return that you know is wrong.

The only thing you need to concentrate on when taking the test is on not being sarcastic. The questions are all so easy that there's an urge to agree with some of the stupid answers! I vaguely remember that you are allowed to retake the test once at your appointment but after that you have to rebook and so go to the back of the queue. I just checked the home affairs website for you: If you fail the test You can: resit the test on the same day if possible re-book the test for another time, especially if you need more time to prepare There is no extra cost for sitting the test again. Failing the test does not affect your permanent visa or stop you from living in Australia. Learn about the citizenship interview and test (homeaffairs.gov.au)

No harm in registering with a tax agent. You will still need to wait for your MES before lodging but it will give you a lot longer before your return is late and if it's worrying you that might save you from some sleepless nights!

I've yet to see a Medicare Entitlement Statement pre-loaded at the ATO - but obviously they are rare so perhaps they've started doing it without me noticing. The only information at the ATO is on how to apply for it, that it can take 6 weeks and you shouldn't lodge before you receive it. No mention of whether or not the ATO will put it on the Prefill once they receive their copy.

You might want to revisit your tax return for the final year you were in Australia. Perhaps you didn't complete it correctly to say that is was your final Australian tax return and didn't provide the date you ceased to be resident? It might explain why there are overdue returns showing.

It's exactly what it says above. If you are non-resident and your only income was bank interest from which the 10% foreign resident withholding has been taken then you do not need to lodge a tax return and can just report "return not necessary". Note that the ATO systems are constantly being improved and as a result they are now automatically blocking people from entering a "return not necessary" if they aren't eligible (e.g. if they have had tax withheld on employment income). Unfortunately that doesn't mean that if the ATO system allows you to enter a "return not necessary" you are definitely eligible (the system is improved, not perfected) but you can be more confident.

Well it won't be British National Overseas - that's a different passport altogether (and one that doesn't entitle you to a 651). You need to be a British Citizen (or a Spanish citizen or one of the other 30 or so eligible citizenships) to apply. Can't see anything to prevent a prevent a British Citizen resident in Spain from applying though.

Why on earth are you concerned about giving an address in Spain? I can understand that if you were currently residing in Afghanistan you might be worried about your address affecting your visitor visa being granted, but Spain? What difference is that going to make?

It's looks as if both WA and Queensland will be opting out of the international flight resumption this year. Residents of NSW and probably most other states should be able to travel for Christmas though.

If you want to be strictly accurate, no it's not paid out of current taxation. Current taxation is used to repay borrowing. Money is borrowed (to be repaid out of future taxation) to pay pensions.

But for anyone born after 1 July 1964 preservation age is 60

Compulsory contributions were introduced in Australia in 1992 and in the UK in 2012. Personally I don't think that 20 years behind is light years in front. Obviously many employers had excellent pension/superannuation schemes even before 1992 - but they weren't compulsory and so not all employees had one. Don't confuse Super with government pensions. It's a private scheme equivalent to a UK personal pension. The Age Pension was introduced in Australia in 1909 (the same year the old age pension began in the UK) but some states had their own schemes even earlier.

I think they thought the mixed-race extra-marital affair would cover it.

It's none of the above. It's 80% of over 16s and (although it is a national plan) applies separately in each jurisdiction (for which you can read state or territory) when they have met or exceeded the target. And yes, that does mean international travel might be allowed for NSW months before it is allowed for WA.

The show's I've been watching recently include Vigil (Foxtel), War of the Worlds (SBS), The Newsreader (ABC), Traces (ABC) and Question Everything (ABC). I'm a fan of both Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell and the Weekly with Charlie Pickering but they're not on at the moment. Gruen will be back soon though. Although I've listed it I'm not actually very impressed with the 2nd series of War of the the Worlds - can't make up my mind if the scriptwriters are idiots or they are trying to subtly demonstrate that what we are seeing is a parallel earth - one which is demonstrably more technically advanced because they've develop insulin that doesn't need refrigeration but demonstrably less technically advanced because they still use bottles and syringes to deliver insulin (something I haven't seen in the last quarter of a century).

The attempts at diversity are nonsense. Only about 5% of the population of Australia (including First Nations people) are black. So technically if you have a cast of 20 and one of them is black that show has appropriate diversity - but if you have a cast of 19 or less and one of them is black then they would be over-represented but if you didn't have any they would be under-represented. How are you supposed to get the balance right? Are you banned from having from two black people on the same show because it doesn't match the statistics?

I don't know about indefinitely but mine is still open more than 5 years after getting citizenship (but I have used the account since to apply for visitor visas for relatives which may be what has extended it).